Category: Trees and leaves

[Whoops! Please pardon my lapse in posting.  It’s not that I haven’t been getting out…]

And in fact I have taken a few pictures. How could I not?!   That crisp glory of fall is upon us,

and with it the first frosting of snow has fallen in the mountains round about…

After a stint of wet & cold, the sun came back to play.  I love the way it makes the trees seem to glow!

The weather has been splendiferous!

So we had the kids out for a visit and took them to one of my favorite places, what I call ‘the meadow’.

It lies on the bike trail between home and town—a well-disguised cover-up of the mining operations upon which Canmore was founded.  Here the men came day by day to the lantern house to fetch their lights and descend into the gloom…

Now we stroll along, or more often pedal along, and revel in the beauty of God’s earth…

These mountains are not just lovely they are also full of treasure. The range we see out our window is made almost entirely of Limestone—a boon for the cement industry. So… we went for a BBQ and  tour at the Exshaw plant just down the highway… Ya’ gotta love the centerpieces on all the tables:

These are ‘clinkers’—the result of baking a crushed combination of rock (mostly limestone) at temperatures a third the heat of the sun!  Now you just take these clinkers, add some gypsum and grind ‘em to powder and you’ve got cement!

It’s a big operation,

but looks pretty cushy from inside this cab…

Well… we’re bracing for winter, so we did a little mountain biking at the local Nordic Ski center to familiarize ourselves with the trails…This’ll all be snow in another month…

And say, here’s evidence that I actually do know how to ride a bike all by myself:

We went exploring off-road on Jim’s day off and discovered the Trans-Canada trail…

We didn’t go too far but we had a lovely time bumping along…

After refueling with a snack we rode along this canal that generates power by diverting water…Nevermind the technical stuff.  I thought the water was lovely ( :

But the rocky ROUGHness of this path was a bit much!

Meanwhile, back at home, our front yard was transformed into a CycleCross course for a race on the weekend.

That was more excitement out the window than I’m used to!

But today the quiet has been restored, and with it the regular rounds of a stealthy coyote…

  After he had passed today along came what I’m thinking was a fox, stalking and pouncing in the tall grass.  Sweet.

And always when one needs to think, or to suspend thinking,  there are my favorite trees to gaze at, now dressed up to welcome autumn…

Lovely.

———–

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

–Joyce Kilmer

–LS